Apr 13, 2015 -- COWI, an international multi-discipline consultancy firm has just added another ZEB1 to its growing portfolio of GeoSLAM solutions for rapidly measuring and mapping building interiors and it’s easy to understand why. “GeoSLAM’s solutions are changing the way we survey buildings.” enthused Morten Thoft, Chief Specialist Mapping & Surveying, Denmark. “We can now measure building plans 10-times faster than we used to with total station or traditional survey equipment.”
Indeed, in just 6 short months since acquiring their first ZEB1 hand-held laser scanner from reseller 3D Laser Mapping, a two-man team at COWI has used the ZEB1 to survey the interiors of some 400 municipal buildings; mapping in excess of 16,000 rooms measuring more than 300,000 m2. “That is equivalent to scanning every inch of London’s ‘Shard’ [the tallest building in the EU with 87 storeys] not once, not twice, but three times.” commented Joe Croser, Chief Operating Officer at GeoSLAM. “It is a substantially larger floor area than that covered by the 103-story Empire State Building in Manhattan which was the World’s tallest building for nearly 40 years from 1931 to 1970; and it is roughly the same floor area as the Burkj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the World’s tallest building which boasts 211 floors and 309,000 m2.”
While such magnitudes add a little context to help one imagine the scale of the project, they don’t elucidate the measurable time-savings realised by COWI. “Our decision to purchase a second ZEB1 was easy. With our first in hand, we surveyed more buildings with more rooms in six months than traditional survey equipment would have allowed in many years.” continued Thoft. “And we were able to capture more information in the process.”
COWI’s ability to turbo-charge their survey process caught their client by surprise; Thoft explained: “We won this project in open tender, beating 3-5 other bidders by promising to complete the project for less money and in less time than any other bidder.” Indeed, COWI’s project schedule was so much shorter than anticipated; the municipality had to bring forward budget that had been allocated to future years; having fully expected the project would be a multi-year engagement.
Still, if a project can be completed sooner, for a lower cost and comprising richer, more reliable data, it is a win-win for all concerned.
About GeoSLAM and ZEB1
GeoSLAM develops game-changing survey solutions including ZEB1, for the measurement and mapping of multi-level three-dimensional environments.
ZEB1, the lightweight hand-held 3D laser-scanner, will record 40,000+ measurement points per second as you walk through your target survey environment. Raw scan data is uploaded to the GeoSLAM Cloud where Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) software transforms the survey measurements into a fully registered point cloud. A Pay-As-You-Go data processing model eliminates large upfront software costs or annual maintenance charges and lowers the cost of acquisition. The GeoSLAM point cloud can be used by any one of a number of leading CAD and BIM software applications including AutoCAD, Revit, MicroStation, PointCab, etc.
Contacts:
Joe Croser
Chief Operating Officer
GeoSLAM Limited
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